Hurricane Sandy

A little less than a week ago, Hurricane Sandy made a mess of things in New York and New Jersey. The lucky ones – like Alexis and me, in a high-ground part of Brooklyn – have felt stranded, subway-less, our lives put on hold. Then there’s lower Manhattan, where Serena lives, which was without power or water for days. And of course Staten Island and parts of New Jersey are still in desperate straits.

This is when asking people for money, or preparing to ask people for money, tomake a film feels… Ridiculous. Offensive.

And yet – I have to believe that this is the point of art. To exist in the face of misery and give people something else to look at. And this is a story about Brooklyn, which will be fully shot in Brooklyn, hiring New York City locals, eating food from Brooklyn restaurants, renting equipment and uniforms and picture cars and whatever else from this area.

I’ve lived in this city for 12 years, and I love it. I love it. That is something that New Yorkers all have in common: we want to be here. We have to want it, it’s too hard to live here for it to be an accident, and for most of us, that required coming from somewhere else. We were all drawn to this place because it is magnetic and difficult and worth loving.